How dry is it in your site area?

[Boar]

Man its dry here, good thing/bad thing? there is abslutly no berries around here, its so dry that it hurts to walk around the yard bearfoot. So Im looking at no beries or very little, same with plums, pretty much all naturals are hit really hard here, acorns probably wont account for much either. So that being the case it should be a good year for baiting, even if we get substaintial rain between now an baiting, its to late for any kinda berrie crop or acorns to make any kinda difference. But nature finds away of playing the HA HA! card dosent it. So I look at a good baiting year, but being so void of the usually groceries an bear having such a large range will they expand that in search for food. Ive already had one bear come thru my river bottom site that I know about, Im sure more have rambled thru. They have their grasses, an other likes that depend on when things go dry, farm crops arnt two far away but its getting dry for them too. I just dont think Ive seen this dry in all the years I've bear hunted. Im sure they'll tough it out in their core area an things seem to always balance out. Ganna be a good year for baiting?? I think so, But so many curv balls an its a onth an half to bait an two to hunt. Lots could happen. Thoughts on this? Lichen Fox your a seasoned vet on bear what dose a dry season hold for us west of the line. Jonny P. wats it look like over east in the mother land?

[jay83196]

Boar what area you in? Seems like all we have had is rain the past month, I was thinking I need to wear rubber boots to a couple sites.

[certified jumbo]

Well our area is extremely wet. We've had over 12 inches of rain in the last 2 weeks. Unfortunetely our rivers and creeks flooded heavy and washed out our wheeler trails and hillsides causing major damage.

We walked the river edge on thursday for about 3/4 of a mile and saw multiple bear tracks in the silt. One bear track was huge. So things in the bear sense are looking promising.

In the area of food. We have no blueberries or other berries on most of the plants this year, decent acorns and the bears have lots of clover to eat from our food plots. It looks as thought thats what they are mainly eating now. Lots of bear dump in the food plots.

I picked up a ton of bread and pastries yesterday for only 10 dollars, I was pumped. Need to plug in the extra freezer now.

[fowldreams]

My father and I will be in area 51. He was out yesterday to an area that we baited two years ago and road was underwater. He figured that if he could have got back in there, that it would have been under a good 18 inches or so. So, we could use the dry weather on this end.

[Boar]

Wow thats crazy, im 40 mile straight west og Grand Forks ND, an we could 2-3 inches an not even raise the the water table, its dry here, No mosquitos< Yea! Ive been in my river half a dozen times since beginning of june an not even a half dozen ticks combined. Usually I can fill an ash tray to burn. Sorry to hear about any damage from flooding that bites. Can make things more difficult for sure, Lat year my dry creek bed I have my site had two feet of water in it this time last year, an by baiting it had dried to just mud. So things can change by baiting time. Good luck boys! Fowl, I did pm'd ya

[charliepete]

My core area is in the epicenter of all the flooding in 51. I was thinking it was looking to be a wet year before we got 9 inches of rain in one night. Unbelievable

[CANOPY SAM]

Much of the state is either at about normal average rainfall, or so far ahead they're under water. Northwest Minnesota is really the exception.

I know that bee-keepers in the area are already having serious problems with nuisance bear breaking into, or trying to break into bee yards.

There's no doubt, if this weather pattern continues, we'll have lots of wandering bear trying to find a consistent food source = excellent baiting success!

This should add up to a great year, at least in our area, for locating bear in or near desirable food source crops. Corn, oats, barley and others will all be magnets for multiple bear.

I wonder if drought conditions like these, with little available natural food throughout the summer, create leaner bear come hunting season?

We could definitely use some rain here, sorry northeast Minnesota.

Sounds like we may be in for a shower or two this evening...hope things don't get ugly too far east of us!

[paceman]

Pretty dry around here as well. There has been suffucient rain all aroud us but D.l. has missed most of the rain. The yard is getting pretty brown and lakes levels are down.

[lichen fox]

If these dry conditions and heat persist into the begining of baiting I would recomend that you set all baits relativly close to a good water source where bears can lay in the water during the day...also, if food is scarce, you will definitly want to be near whatever natural or agricultural foods that the bear are feeding on...we had it this dry a few years back when we were hunting between FourTown and Williams...We started baiting the 1st of Sept. by then the grasses and clovers were all dried up...there were no berries of any kind to speak of, and acorns, hazel and dogwoods were not plentiful at all...we ran about a dozen baits over about a 100 mile loop through the forest...We got hits, but nothing ever turned consistant enough to hunt...we tried a few times but never seen a bear...another thing about that year that puzzled us was that we never saw any bear scat near our baits or even on the roads we traveled...at the end of the season we concluded that the majority of the bears had left this "foodless" area in search of food somewhere else and the ones that had stayed hibernated about the 3rd week of Sept. just because they were burning more fat than they were putting on in their search for food! We also concluded that the hits we had were from bears on the search for food and we probably never had the same bear hit a bait twice because the closest intervals between a hit on any one bait was 5 days! I firmly beleive that there has to be a natural food source somewhat close to a bait to really hold a bear or bears to a site...I don't think you can put out enough doughnuts to give a bear all he needs to put on fat...they need other foods too...In the no-quota, "ag area", I'd be looking for Sunflower, Corn and bean fields that have a decent water supply close by, especially if it is still this hot and dry when the hunt begings...by mid august, in our area all the oats, wheat and barley will be in the bins....Oaks and Hazel are very deep rooted and not affected as much by drought and heat...I have noticed a good crop of Hazel around our hunting camps and also there looks to be quite a few acorns

...Chokecherrys are abundant, but they too will be all done by mid august...

[CANOPY SAM]

Good point, Lichen Fox. I'd forgotten how early so many of our crops went in this spring. You're right, by mid-August, perhaps even late July (?) most, if not all the small grains will be harvested. I'd imagine much of the corn will be well past prime, and many standing crops will be drying down prior to harvest and hunting season.

It's really way too early to tell what our weather is going to do for the remainder of the summer, but with the dry pattern we've been seeing it seems likely to stay dry.

This heat is unbelievable! I can almost see my tomato plants growing in the gardens, and our potatoes are nearly waist high! If I were a big furry bear I'd be laying in the pool all day too!

Do bear really eat various dry beans? We have tons of beans in our area, but I didn't know this would be a food source for bear. The deer love em'! I suppose if a bear is hungry enough he'll eat pretty much anything. I was thinking they might even be turning more toward baby animals this year, birds, fawns, rabbits, etc..

I love your comment about not feeding a bear enough pastries! I once had a huge bruin absolutely clean out every morsel of 25 gallons of bait in a station!!! 25 gallons!! This was over only a few day period, and of course, he had moved on by the time I returned to the station!!!

[lichen fox]

I've seen bear on soybean fields in our area several times...they start on them, as they do on other crops like corn and oats, when they are in the dough stage and will continue on them, depending on other food availablility as the seeds harden to maturity...I've seen fresh bear scat near fairly mature corn fields that just looked like someone dumped a quart of corn on the ground...but I imagine thier digestive systems are capable of taking out the starches, sugars and oils they can use to make fat and the rest just passes through! Bear are the number one predator of fawns in early spring, but I don't think they'd have much luck catching them come mid summer as the fawns could easlily outrun and out distance them by that time...bears also eat alot of ant larvae and grubs during the summer...that is one of the first things I look for when scouting a new area...tore-up logs, and leveled ant piles.

[Boar]

Thanks fox, always great info. Hoped you chime in, good luck this year.

[CANOPY SAM]

Boy, that really is good information. And it really makes sense...the info about the bear moving to another area with a consistent food (and water) source.

I'd bet a little research on weather patterns historically, compared to bear harvest in quota vs. non-quota zones, might show a migration of bear into agricultural lands in years when the forest isn't producing enough natural food?

I've always been a fan of "finding" bear, in and around agricultural crops, then attracting them with scent, and/or spot and stalk hunting.

The observations you posted about multiple sites over a 100 mile area during a dry year (in prime bear habitat), resulting in no consistent hits - that's extremely insightful. One would initially think you'd get bear piled on those stations with little natural food available, but the fact that they weren't even there anymore, that's remarkable!

Again, a couple good rains and our fate in the no quota zone of Northwestern Minnesota could change very quickly. I'd venture we've had enough rain to produce a late crop of raspberries. They're really hardy plants, and can blossom and produce fruit even in funky years. There is other food out there, just not as abundant as previous wet years.

I used to look for the same things around Grand Rapids when initial scouting began; torn up logs, leveled ant hills, etc.. The correlation to water is another helpful piece of info.

Boar has the ultimate combo in all of the above. Small, quiet river bottoms, meandering thru various agricultural croplands. Perfect travel corridors between food sources, water, and shelter.

Might not be easy to find, but I think I'll start lookin' for the same combinations! Hope to put two of my kids on their first bear this fall, but won't be gathering bait for stations. Rather, we'll be focusing on putting ourselves amidst bear sign, and trying to bring them within range with scents, burns, etc.

Thanks for the great intel Lichen Fox. Any other tips would be greatly appreciated.

Interestingly, we've had bear in our backyard, just south of TRF, in past years. I have solar powered electric fences around our gardens to protect our "very valuable" sweet corn, and berry crops. If this moderate drought continues I may be harvesting a nuisance bear in our BACK YARD!

[Black Bear]

It took us 10 years to figure it out but in the area I hunt, when the DNR says the natural food sources are bad and the hunters will do well---we struggle. When the DNR says the mast crops are good and hunitng should only be average or less than average...we do well. We do not hunt in areas that offer acorns or much farming. Just a fact for us.......

[lichen fox]

That's very true...We've also had the same experience's...no natural food means less bears in any given area...abundant food and they're piled in there like grizzlys when the salmon are running! Bears need abundant natural food....even if a bear is hitting 3 or 4 different baits, there probably isn't enough of what he needs to keep him going...

[Boar]

Ex actly bears know what they need to survive. empty calories dont get them thru the winter. Its gona be interesting year nonetheless.